The present invention relates in general to outdoor cooking devices and, more particularly, to a combination barbecue and smoker apparatus.
Outdoor barbecue grills and smokers are currently very popular, including charcoal and gas grills and barbecues for home use, as well as larger gas grills, barbecue pits and fire pits for commercial use. Commercial barbecues that use charcoal or wood fires typically use a pit constructed of sheet metal or grating, often simply a half of a large metal storage drum longitudinally cut and positioned on supports with a metal grating retained in the drum to provide a large cooking surface. Typically, for large events at which meat is cooked for many people, many of these large drums are set up and simply used simultaneously side by side to cook a high volume of meat. However, the use of multiple drums is relatively labor intensive, inconvenient and inefficient in that the drums are bulky and messy to transport, inconvenient to set up, and result in a relatively low ratio of cooking surface to heat source. In addition, although an individual drum can be used as a smoker, it is not typically easily set up as a combined smoker and barbecue.
Against this background, and considering the increasing popular demand for outdoor barbecuing and smoking, a need exists for a high volume barbecue apparatus that also can be used simultaneously as smoker apparatus. A need also exists for apparatus in multiple levels of heating can be simultaneously maintained to better serve a multitude of diners who may be eating at different times.
A high volume multi-chamber barbecue and smoker apparatus is provided, including multiple smoker chambers and multiple heating chambers interconnected by a ventilation and exhaust system of pipes with manually operated valves for controlling air and smoke flow between multiple chambers as well as to the outside environment. The ventilation and exhaust system permits ventilation and drafting to the apparatus to be controlled so that a charcoal or wood fire can be more quickly and efficiently started, and then air ventilation and smoke selectively adjusted during cooking to control the amount of heat or smoke delivered to the food in various smoker and heating chambers of the multi-chamber apparatus.